A tanned Harry smiles as she walks up Charring Cross Road, from Tottenham Court Road tube, with her new family. It took most of the month in France, but Harry finally started to let her guard down around Sebastian and Naomi, along with Freda, Sebastian's mother. Glancing over at Hermione, who's nose is stuck in a book again, she sneakily reaches out and takes her free hand as they pass by the different book, music, and even the occasional electronics, shops.
Abruptly, she stops to stare in a window for a moment, causing Hermione to exclaim as she almost drops her book.
"Harry! Did you have to… what are you looking at?"
Harry points at a GRIDPad SL that's sitting in the window display, "Mum sometimes uses something like that. I didn't know we had them here."
Sebastian shakes his head, "They're not very popular yet, we had some of the originals at the hospital a couple of years ago. We couldn't use them as they need to be plugged in to access networked resources, and they also interfered with some of the sensitive diagnostic machines, like the EEG and ECG. However, as we've stopped, we should probably think about getting you a computer for the Study so that you don't need to keep using Hermione's or ours."
Harry raises her hands, "You don't need to do that si…papa, I don't need a computer."
Sebastian sighs, "Harry, Naomi and I spend a lot of time at the Hospital. So, while it's not a true substitute for us being around, it's something we like to do. Besides, you can also help find some educational games for Dobby to play while you're at school. Also don't forget we're heading to John Lewis, Selfregies, and finally Liberty, to buy furniture for your room, as well as things for Dobby's room."
20 minutes later, Harry and Hermione are about to grab her parents hands when Sebastian says, "Naomi, where are you going? We're here."
As soon as Sebastian grabs her hand, Naomi's eyes clear and she looks at the pub, and then back at Sebastian, "Seb, what? How?"
Sebastian double checks the pub and looks around, "I have no idea. It's just there. You know how we always have no idea how we could miss it when we're holding Hermione's hand? Well it's like that now."
It's almost lunch time when the four of them finish the school shopping, slightly later than they expected due to some paperwork that Harry had to go through with Sebastian, due to her change in appearance and mother. That and the quiet conversation that Sebastian had with her in the vault.
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As Harry stooped down to pick up a scoop of Galleons, Sebastian crouched down next to her, "Harry, could you get 42 Galleons and then give them to me. Naomi and I spoke about this on holiday, and as your guardians we can't allow you to use your parents money for your school expenses. What we're going to do instead is set up an investment trust for you, and everything that you take out of here we will add the pounds equivalent of to your trust. That way, when you're 18 you'll have money on both sides of the divide to help you with whatever you want to do. We can also use it as a way to teach you about money and investments."
Harry rocked back in surprise, "But I don't want to be a burden."
"Harry, children are never a burden. You especially are not a burden, I've never seen Hermione not nose deep in a book when she's not at school. You've already got her playing in the pool, and showing you around the village. You're the sister that she's always needed."
"Why doesn't she have a sister?"
Sebastian's eyes went distant, "There were complications when Hermione was born. If you want to talk about it, we can do so once we've got home, alright?"
Harry nodded, "Ok."
"Good, now put the money back and count out 42 Galleons. That's more than we should need for today, but we budgeted a little slack for just in case."
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Just before they get to the Leaky Cauldron, Naomi turns around to face the children, one of which is looking longingly over at flourish and blots.
"Children, it's almost lunch time, however, as we're eating in Chinatown, we thought we'd give you July's pocket money. Harry, would you be a dear and call Dobby please?"
Naomi has to call Harry's name a second time before she softly calls, "Dobby!"
Dobby appears next to them all and sees the shopping. With a click of his fingers it disappears, as does the house elf.
"Harry, would you mind calling Dobby back please?"
When Dobby reappears, he says, "How can Dobby help the Great Mistress Hari Potter?"
Naomi smiles, "Dobby, can you wait here a moment before disappearing."
With that said, Sebastian pulls out 6 galleons that he kept back and hands two of them to Dobby, "Dobby, this is your pocket money, there is only one rule for spending it. You cannot spend it on anything to do with the upkeep of the house, grounds, or our food."
Dobby stands there staring at his hands while Sebastian hands Harry and Hermione their own pocket money, "Be back here at 1, you should be able to hear big ben from here."
Hermione immediately runs off to Flourish and Blotts, while Harry walks over to the Broom Shop to look for a new pair of gloves with comfort charms. With the remaining 8 sickles and 15 knuts, and the money she didn't spend last year, she's able to buy a book on blacksmithing, figuring that she should learn to make the weapons that her mother used to use.
Sebastian turns to Naomi, "We've got 3 galleons left, do you want to have a look around the junk shop?"
Naomi smiles, "You still know the best way to this girls heart."
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"Dad, Harry. Dinner's ready. What are you doing?"
Harry looks up from the sheets of paper and parchment on the desk, and brings the stuffed unicorn she bought in Hamley's to her chest, "Um, papa? Papa is showing me how to read my Gringotts statement, and also taking me through the trust they set up for me. I had no idea about any of this."
Hermione sticks her tongue out, "Ugh, I hate those lessons. It's always the same thing, over and over again."
Sebastian smiles, "That's right my little queen, it's always the same thing over and over again. Such is the life of an adult. Maybe I should include you in your mother and I's monthly look at our finances."
Looking stricken, Hermione flees the room before turning back, "Um, Harry, would you like to look at our Arithmancy books after dinner?"
Harry's about to respond when Sebastian puts a hand on her knee, taking a moment to think, she answers with a smile, "Sure, um," Hugging her unicorn for comfort Harry continues, "couldweplayAtmosphereafterwards?"
Hermione laughs, "Of course we can silly."
Once they're all sat around the table in the kitchen diner, Naomi drags over a seated barstool that they ordered from Liberty while they were there last week. Softly she then calls for Dobby, "Dobby, you may serve up as long as you serve yourself some and join us at the table."
Dobby appears wearing socks on his ears, hands, and feet, "Dobby is a good elf, Dobby cannot eat with family."
"Dobby, sit! You may be a house elf, and bound to Harry for your survival. That doesn't mean that you can't eat with us. Even Harry eats with us, and you know she only needs to feed from Hermione occasionally. So if she can do it, so can you."
While Naomi is lecturing Dobby, Sebastian quietly serves up the food and brings it over to the table. While they're eating, and Naomi is treating Dobby like a particularly recalcitrant 4 year old, Sebastian broaches a subject that he and Naomi have been discussing since June.
"Harry, Hermione, your mum and I are working the rest of the week. But at the weekend we'd like to try visiting Harry's mother again. Harry, I know that it's a lot to ask, but everywhere else you both go, we can in theory visit if necessary, except there. If the sorting hat is there, then maybe you could ask it to help you work out what happened last time."
Harry snatches the unicorn off the floor beside her, and buries her face in it's head, "Ok. I'll ask."
"Harry, you can say no. We'll be disappointed, but it's your decision. If you do, I still want you to ask and learn. As it's better to know and not need, than to need and not know. So I'm going to ask again. We would like to try visiting your mother again at the weekend, do you think you'll be up to it?"
Harry shakes her head in the negative, and Sebastian smiles at her, "That's ok, we'll put it off until you think you're ready. Can you take letters through?"
Harry nods, and in a small voice says, "I can, I keep all of my school stuff there."
Sebastian nods, "Then we'll be penpals until you feel ready to try again."
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Hermione looks over at the notepad that Harry's scribbling on as she's looking at one of the pages in the Arithmancy book.
"Harry, what are you doing?"
Harry looks up from her work, "I'm trying to understand why 3 is such a special number based on the examples in the book. So I've been dividing one zero, one zero zero, and one zero zero zero, in different ways, but it keeps dividing correctly."
? ﾒﾑﾊ? ﾒﾑﾊ÷? =? ﾒﾑﾊ?
Hermione looks at the equation, her eyebrows furrowed, "Harry, I know you make notes in your mothers English, but could you try that equation in our English?"
10÷3=3⅓
After laboriously writing the sum out, and then doing the math long hand, Harry frowns at the final simplified equation, "But that's stupid, why do it like that when this works even better."
?ￃﾷ?=?;?
"See, there's no awkward division hanging around. You've got a nice, neat number."
Hermione looks up as she thinks back on Harry's early assignments, "Harry, have you always been doing your math like this and then converting it back to English?"
"Well, it is English, but yes. Arabic numbers never really caught on my mum's earth."
"That explains so much about your early essays. Why didn't you learn to do decimal in your head?"
Harry shrugs, "The Dursleys punished me if I did better than Dudley, who's thicker than two short planks, so I didn't see any reason to do so."
"How did you manage to survive dad's lesson on your money?"
Harry grimaces, "By adding it up as I went along."
Hermione huffs, "Well, that's no good. Come on, let's show this to dad, and then we can play your game."
One explanation later, Sebastian looks at the sheet of paper and scratches his chin absently, "I think this would be better talked about in the study tomorrow. However, off the top of my head I can think of a couple of ways to help you with this. A good quality scientific calculator would be my first suggestion, but that will only work here. Setting up a spreadsheet in Lotus 123 on the computer would work too. Harry, have you ever used an abacas?" Harry shakes her head, "I'll see if I can't buy you a good quality one during my lunch hour tomorrow. Then you can use it at school to do your schoolwork. You'll need to work at it, as they're somewhat tricky to learn."